Teaching in Higher Ed

Teaching

Seeing the gorillas through the trees

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Our friends, Sandie and Jean came over for dinner last night. Jean was doing some recording with Dave for the Carnegie Coach podcast, while Sandie and I hung out with the kids.

attention-blindness

Our son, Luke, was pretty antsy from an exciting day with his Grandparents, who are visiting. A book seemed in order, to calm him down and possibly also to entertain Sandie.

I had recently bought him the book Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, by Jeanette Winter. Here’s the book’s plot, from the publisher’s description:

This true story of Wangari Maathai, environmentalist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is a shining example of how one woman's passion, vision, and determination inspired great change.

The author makes the story accessible to kids as she describes Wangari's opposition to the trees that were cut down in Kenya, to make room for buildings.

An entirely different meaning

Since this was not the first time Luke was hearing the story, I asked him questions, as we went along, about what was about to happen next. I inquired as to what had happened to all the beautiful green trees in Kenya, as we flipped to a page with lots of tree trunks, but no lush green branches.

Someone trimmed them,” Luke replied.

He was using the most commonly-used vocabulary around here for what happens to trees. It’s actually quite an exhilarating event, for an almost three year-old.

Landscapers from our community come around every few months and trim the trees.

I found out that we have nearly double the amount of trees where we live than they do in Central Park. The tree trimmers climb up on tall ladders and make quite a ruckus.

It’s got everything that Luke loves in life: noise, green, climbing, and people.

Of course, in Kenya, they weren’t doing trimming. Their work was not designed to make the trees more beautiful and healthy, but to destroy them. They had cut down all the trees, to make room for new construction.

I didn’t correct Luke’s use of the word trimming, but replaced it with the accurate word as I repeated back to him mostly what I had heard him say.

I responded to Luke that, “Yes, they had cut down the trees and now the green was gone, and so were the birds who had made their homes in the trees.”

After a few times of me using the word “cutting,” he seemed to be able to distinguish between trimming and chopping down trees. I never would have realized that there was any confusion, if I hadn’t been asking questions along the way.

This happens to us all the time in the classroom, though the potential for us to completely miss it is significant.

Attention blindness

Dr. Cathy Davidson, my guest on episode 28, shared with us about the experiments done on attention blindness. As Dr. Davidson describes on Inside Higher Ed:

…this famous experiment is a video of six people passing a basketball, half in white and half in black shirts.

Subjects are asked to count how many times the ball is passed only to and from those wearing black, not white, and then are quizzed on the number of passes they counted. What over half of subjects in a normal testing situation miss is a woman in a gorilla suit who walks in among the tossers for a full nine seconds, stares into the camera, and walks away.

The experiment is designed to show us what we normally cannot see about ourselves: how paying attention in a focused way requires us to shut out everything else — even a gorilla.

If you would like more information about attention blindness, including a video of Harvard’s invisible gorilla experiment, Brain Pickings did a nice job overviewing Dr. Davidson’s book and research.

When we learn about the gorilla experiment, or watch the video, having already received the spoiler, it’s easy to think that we are somehow different. That we wouldn’t have been among those who would have missed the gorilla, if we had been one of the subjects in the study.

But that kind of thinking can limit our potential and hinder our growth. Dr. Davidson has inspired me to dig in even more than usual on what I might be missing in my teaching throughout 2015.

Now what?

We read to children far better than some of us teach. Our challenge is to constantly be assessing where there may be gaps in our students’ understanding and help challenge them to apply what they are learning.

If we don’t turn the page and stop to ask them what happens next, we can all to easily be left thinking they have mastered the material in the same way that we perceive we have. I'm thankful for the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast guests who are open to exposing us to new ideas that challenge the way we have been doing things and help us reach new heights.

[reminder]What will you to doing in 2015 to look for the gorillas in your teaching?[/reminder]

Cultivate curiosity in higher ed students

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CURIOSITY

Our son has a new habit. He points at something he hasn't seen before and says, “Whaaaaaaaassssshhaaaatttt?”

For many parents, I know this stage is frustrating. I also recognize that there may well come a time when I'm not amused by it, either.

However, I'm delighted by it now. It's interesting to see what captures his attention and what things are new to him. The whole experience also makes me wish I could bottle his curiosity and administer it, when needed, in the higher ed classroom.

Dr. Mark Carnes joined me for the most recent episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast (episode 21). He described how the role playing immersion game, Reacting to the Past, is transforming the way students engage in the college classroom. In Minds on Fire, his book on the same subject, he talks about his early experiences having students play one of the games.

He describes:

Never had students been so engaged and in such a weird way.

Someone piped up, ‘does anyone realize that class was supposed to end seven minutes ago?'

…We had lost track of ourselves.

Carnes seems to be describing students who are in what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls being in a state of flow. Their curiosity is heightened and they're thinking critically about the class content.

Carnes has found a way to bottle the adventurous nature of a toddler and sparked the curiosity of his college students.

Not all of us will be able to use a Reacting to the Past curriculum for a particular class. However, there are steps we can take to cultivate curiosity in our classes.

Direct students solve a problem

Probably the most influential person on my teaching throughout my career has been Dr. M. David Merrill, Professor Emeritus from Utah State University.

I used to work for a computer training company. We hired Dr. Merrill to do some consulting for us. I remember how vividly he altered my view of teaching.

At the time, I thought I was teaching computer application skills. What I realized was that I was getting people to follow a series of steps that I prescribed and only assessing them on their ability to do what I instructed.

Throughout Dr. Merrill's career, he has emphasized the importance of having learners engaged in solving problems. I'm only skimming the surface of Merrill's principles of instruction here.

Our classes in higher education will promote greater learning opportunities if we direct students to solve a problem and not simply get them to regurgitate facts.

Instruct students to give advice to people (or characters) involved in the situation

I've previously recommended using the podcast Planet Money in teaching about business. One of the most interactive sessions I typically see in my introduction to business students is when I ask them to recommend a solution to the currency problem experienced in Brazil's history.

I play the episode up until the point when they have described the challenges with an unstable currency and how difficult that point in Brazil's history was for them. Then, I press the pause button and ask them how they would recommend that they solve the currency problem.

Resist the temptation to be a know it all

If students perceive that we already know everything there is to know on a topic, we can inadvertently diminish their curiosity about a topic.

The other day, I brought in an example from the NBA for my introduction to business class. There's a running joke about my lack of sports knowledge in just about all of my classes. One student had lamented that I use Apple in my examples too often and he was hoping for more sports.

After receiving his feedback, I changed an entire section of my module introducing various promotion strategies that companies use to be centered around the NBA's promotional efforts.

I shared about a website that the NBA had set up in 2010 to use direct marketing to appeal to Hispanics. Candidly, I admitted that I wasn't sure what had become of the website, or what more current efforts they were putting in to attracting Hispanic fans. It was the best example I had found when I was putting it together late the prior evening.

My lack of knowledge opened the door for sports fans in the class to share their knowledge. One student talked about how players will wear special jerseys to culminate their Latin nights celebrations. Other students piped in with their examples and a few asked questions to extend the scenario a bit further.

If I hadn't resisted the temptation try to know it all, the students have missed the opportunity to apply their newfound knowledge to a topic they are passionate about.

[reminder] How do you cultivate curiosity with your students?[/reminder]

How to make a seemingly boring topic come alive

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It's a boring topic, so of course the evaluations are going to be lower.

Make boring topic come to life

In evaluating the success of various courses, low course evaluations are often explained away by asserting that the faculty member was teaching a boring subject. I have heard this logic at more than a handful of institutions in my ten years in academia and am disappointed that some of us are satisfied with that answer.

I certainly had my idea about what subjects were boring when I was an undergrad. Now, as a lifelong learner, I can't find a topic that can't be made interesting by a teacher who has a passion for the subject and brings it to life.

Here are five ways to make a seemingly boring topic interesting.

Introduce an experience

Speaking of topics I found boring as an undergrad, science can definitely be among those topics that professors find challenging to generate interest in for many students.

Dr.Chrissy Spencer at Georgia Tech uses engaging and creative techniques to help her students actually experience the learning in her courses. This Active Learning in Biology video shows her “teaching evolution by turning her students into chili peppers.”

Despite the over 200 students in that large lecture hall, they are each getting to share in an experience that will help them remember the lessons learned for a long time to come. It is no surprise that she wound up winning a prestigious teaching award from Georgia Tech, based on her innovation in the classroom.

Bring in humor

My sales students were learning about how you don't want to present a solution to a client as soon as you think they know what they need, but to hold off until you explore the challenges further and understand their impact. The textbook author describes the studies done on children where they were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited for five minutes that they could have two more marshmallows.

I showed this video of kids who participated in the marshmallow study. It brought the reading alive in a new and humorous way. I also showed Stephen Colbert interviewing Walter Mischel, the author of a recent book about the marshmallow studies.

These humorous segments brought energy into the class and invigorated the discussion.

Invite some friendly competition

As long as it is done in a way that won't embarrass those who aren't understanding the material as well as others, competition can be a way of bringing interest and energy into the classroom.

Do a quiz using PollEverywhere, or play the HeadsUp game.

Have students create something new from what they have been learning and then have the students vote for their top three new creations. There are all sorts of way to invite a little friendly competition into your classroom.

Reinvigorate your own passion

Perhaps if the topic seems boring to you, it's time to invest in reigniting your interest in the subject. I've found that having a well-established personal knowledge mastery system set up helps to keep breathing new life into what I teach.

If your organization offers professional development funds, perhaps it's time to attend a conference or to start exploring some interdisciplinary teaching and learning opportunities.

Approach the topic from a child-like perspective

To keep my students from memorizing words that don't actually mean anything to them, I often have them explain something as if they were talking to an eight year old.

I also use ridiculous analogies for difficult to comprehend subjects, such as when I use a trip to CostCo to buy toilet paper in an example on the accrual method of accounting.

Astrophysicist Roberto Trotta was quoted on NPR [arguing] that we don't need jargon. In his new book, The Edge of the Sky, Trotta tells the story of how the universe was created without using complicated descriptions. In fact, he conveys his message while restricting himself to the 1,000 most commonly used words in English.

[reminder]What approaches do you use for making seemingly boring topics more interesting?[/reminder]

 

Sticky notes as a teaching tool

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This past week was our start to the semester. I was struck, once again, at how little I knew of the students' individual stories that led them to find themselves in my class. As the week ended, though, I celebrated what I was able to glean about them in that short of a time.

A particularly useful tool in connecting with my students was the sticky note.

mostcommon-sticky
Sticky note exercise: Signs were created using the easy-to-use graphics editor called Canva.com

I'm teaching three sections of Introduction to Business, in addition to one marketing elective. I've taught Introduction to Business over twenty times, previously, just not three times in the same semester.

We started out with an exercise designed to help them get to know each other and start to think about how entrepreneurs come up with ideas.

I shared how many business ideas are the result of attempts to solve problems.

There was recently a story from Wired Magazine about the invention of a gadget that helps solve the problem of doctors not washing their hands thoroughly enough. Another example came from college students looking to reduce date rape incidents through their creation of nail polish that changes color when exposed to date rape drugs.

[Read more…] about Sticky notes as a teaching tool

Cultivating character

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It isn't just about getting students not to cheat. It's about them cultivating character and developing into people who can make good decisions in a complex world.

cultivating character

The headline reads like something from the online satirical news site, The Onion.

Professor plagiarized plagiarism definition in textbook, co-author says

However, as the headlines started to spread, none of the sources were from anything but actual news organizations. As more stories about this co-author's accusation emerge, the defense from the accused (or at least those who are speaking for him) seems to be that he neglected to cite the quote correctly, not that he intended to do anything dishonest. Let's keep in mind that the guy we are talking about here is a person who wrote a book about plagiarism, who supposedly should be among the leading sources on how to cite correctly. The university has conducted an investigation and suggests that the problem happened on the publisher's end, with citations being removed from the work. While they have concluded their focus on the matter, questions still exist as to the root causes.

This story was revealed after we recently learned that Senator John Walsh had plagiarized large portions of his thesis, while at the Army War College. While there are some plagiarism charges that are less clear cut and sometimes used as a means to launch an attack on an opponent, the kind of dishonesty I am writing about for this article is the type that is easily identified.

As the news cycle seems to have hit on another supposed pattern of academic dishonesty, it is easy to focus on the individuals that the media has made take center stage. While I do want those who chose to take that route to be held accountable, I also hope that those of us in academia can be thinking about ways that we contribute to these incidents occurring.

The profession of accounting has a model that can help us conceptualize how we might better cultivate character in our students. Criminologist Donald R. Cressey articulates how fraud is perpetuated by three forces working together in what he calls the fraud triangle: opportunity, motivation, and rationalization. Let's consider the three ways we avoid cultivating character in our students:

We give them opportunity

More than half of the time, the students I catch plagiarizing have been in college or graduate school for some time. This is not their first class. I typically discover that this is the first time a professor has ever used any type of plagiarism detection service with their work. When I first started teaching in higher ed and such services were not available to me, I used to be able to determine (or so I thought) pretty easily when students' writing was not their own. However, the vast majority of the time when issues arise today, I would never have caught it on my own, without the support of TurnItIn.com.

We don't take away their motivation

I've written previously about what my students have taught me about plagiarism. I'm still struck by one of the young women telling me that it was clear to her that when plagiarism happens in my classes, the consequences are severe. She couldn't imagine it would be worth it to anyone to take the risk. I loved her transparency. We can use the disincentive that holding students accountable for their actions can provide us.

We let them rationalize their choices

A natural response to being confronted with our unethical behavior can be to try to excuse it as something that isn't really them. “You have to understand. I'm just not like that.” When I have heard that response, I attempt to get the student to a place where he or she can begin to name the choice they made. The next step I hope they can take is to see that when we do “a thing” – we are the kind of person who does “that thing.” When we behave a particular way, we are the kind of person who behaves that way. When we don't attribute other people's words and ideas to them, we are the kind who steals other people's words and ideas. The final place I work to influence toward is where students can build a foundation of values that are in alignment with the choices they make. This important aspect of cultivating character is to help people identify, name, and acknowledge what it is they have done.

[reminder]How to you work to cultivate character in your students? Where are we allowing for more opportunity, motivation, and rationalizations to contribute to an environment where cheating flourishes? [/reminder]